


Things Owed

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blinding by Saber, Canon Spouse Abuse, Deathfic, F/M, Gen, Head injury from a fall, Mustafar AU, Saber Wound, Spouse Horror, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22419187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: What if Padmé had survived, but it was Obi-Wan, whose heart broke and just wouldn't let him continue on?
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 221





	Things Owed

**Author's Note:**

> Courtesy Note 1: Spoilers abound for the Clovis arc in Clone Wars Season 6, even in this author note.
> 
> Courtesy Note For Anakin Fans: If you deeply respect Anakin, you may want to choose another story to read. Without finishing this author note. To quote Yoda, if further you go, only pain will you find.
> 
> \- - -
> 
> I had an uncomfortable realization while writing this story and designing the warning tags.
> 
> While RotS and most fanfiction I've read (or written) mostly glosses over this fact, Anakin abuses his pregnant wife on Mustafar: throttling her to the point of unconsciousness and then letting her just fall on the duracrete. If he'd done it with his hands, not with magic, people would be talking about it differently. It's nice to say that if Obi-Wan had waited a few more minutes, maybe it wouldn't have happened, but let's be real. Obi-Wan's presence didn't make Anakin physically attack his wife, any more than any other spousal abuse is caused by events making the abuser angry.
> 
> This story is going to look that uncomfortable point of canon square in the face. It will also draw from events in Attack of the Clones and Season 6 of Clone Wars. 
> 
> When I started writing it, I expected it to be very AU, but by the end, I was rather shocked by how much of it is straight out of canon (Not Obi-Wan dying on Mustafar, obviously, but Anakin's pattern of escalation)... 
> 
> That final Clovis arc in the Clone Wars was dark, for so many reasons. Padmé saying to Anakin's face she's afraid, that she doesn't feel safe, that she doesn't want him in her home anymore, that she doesn't “know who's in there sometimes”... and yet, by the end, she's taken him back without them even really discussing it, she's so shell-shocked by Clovis' death and she just curls into Anakin for comfort. Lucas seemed to think the sweeping Anidala romance held terrible undercurrents, long before Anakin slaughtered Jedi.
> 
> The extra trigger warning just turned into a “Look what I found in Star Wars this week.” Ah, well. I'm still having major issues reconciling this with the hero Anakin of most of Clone Wars. The duality of this man, so fierce in his determination to protect his loved ones... yet first in line to harm them.

Padmé, the woman Anakin loved _so much,_ lay on the ground where she'd been dropped, choked unconscious, no care given to what that fall, with all the extra weight, might do to her or the child within.

Anakin Skywalker had lashed out with violence against his _wife_ and unborn child _._

Obi-Wan had remained out of sight while Padmé pleaded with him, because _surely,_ if somehow this had all been a mistake, he would explain it, and if he would listen to _anyone,_ and change direction even now, _Padmé_ would be the one.

Except he dismissed her concerns, her fear, her _tears._ He shrugged off the murder of Obi-Wan's _family,_ and when Padmé protested, Anakin menaced her. Threatened her not to “turn against him.”

Obi-Wan couldn't imagine Padmé backing down, knowing how strong she was, and sensing her horror and dawning belief.

But even then, Obi-Wan hadn't been able to _conceive_ of Anakin raising a fist against her. Hadn't he said he was doing _all of this_ for her?

But when Obi-Wan moved to intervene, to take Anakin's attention away from Padmé and direct it somewhere else—

It hadn't worked.

Obi-Wan stared at Anakin, realizing Anakin had crossed that line.

Not only was it permissible to enact violence against _Obi-Wan's_ family, _now_ it was suddenly allowable to throw his wife on the ground, choke her unconscious, and scream in her face.

Obi-Wan found himself coming undone. He closed the distance, but his saber was not in his hand. And the fact that Anakin grabbed his own made no difference to the shattering Jedi.

“You want me dead?” Obi-Wan challenged, feeling the world seem to reel around him, ash sticking to his skin. “Then you don't send _somebody else_ to do it. You don't send _Cody—_ ” Obi-Wan's voice failed, but he struggled on anyway. “You _fripping do it yourself!_ And you don't do it _after_ you've killed _everyone I love_ who somehow managed to survive Maul and Dooku and the war. You kill me _first_! You don't _fripping_ make me go through that! You don't make me feel the moment _Rex_ turned on _Ahsoka!_ You just _don't!_ ”

There were tears in his eyes, on his face, and he was so close to Anakin that he could see the vile gold flecks that lingered in Anakin's irises, ready to bloom again and turn his eyes to the yellow that had been the last thing so many of Obi-Wan's loved ones had seen.

Obi-Wan might have been sobbing. He knew he couldn't breathe, the horror and agony of it too much for him to endure, not after _everything else_ that had been stripped away over the course of his life.

And now he was just supposed to _take this_ from Anakin's hand, when Anakin had been _anything_ but okay with the deaths of _his_ family, of his _mother,_ and if anyone had murdered _his_ wife, Obi-Wan knew Anakin would never forgive the killer, _ever._

But Obi-Wan was supposed to meekly accept what Anakin gave him, and _thank_ him once it was done.

No wonder Padmé had protested.

Look where it had gotten her.

_You are a monster._

It had nothing to do with whether Anakin claimed the _title_ of Sith or Jedi, whether he claimed light or dark.

It had everything to do with the sort of _man_ Anakin Skywalker had become, the man who stood here, disgust in his eyes as Obi-Wan came undone from the torment that he had been forced to swallow.

The man who made no move to assist his wife.

A familiar lightsaber crystal wailed in protest, and then fire punched through Obi-Wan's chest.

A cry wrenched out of him, he swayed forward, his hand fisting in Anakin's tunic, he shuddered, broken, lost—

“Is this what you want?” Anakin hissed, returning his once-again silent saber to his belt. “I can give you that. You should have joined me, Obi-Wan. You should have chosen me.”

Obi-Wan had chosen him every step of the last thirteen years, had _always_ chosen him.

Perhaps it would have been nice...

 _If, in just this one,_ big _thing..._

 _If_ you _had chosen_ me.

But that had been too much to ask, had always been too much to ask.

Anakin wrenched Obi-Wan's grip free of his clothes, shoved him away.

Obi-Wan hit the ground hard, unable to break his fall. He lay on his back, feeling the damage to his skull, wondered how much damage had been done to Padmé's.

He turned his head, just a little, the pain excruciating, to see.

He found brown eyes, wide in horror, in terror, staring back at him.

 _Will he kill her too?_ Obi-Wan wondered. He tried a faint smile, hurting to see her afraid, wanting to ease some of her suffering.

“You don't get to look at her,” hissed Anakin.

* * *

Padmé couldn't move. None of her limbs would obey, but when Anakin slid his saber over Obi-Wan's eyes, her body jerked back in mirror of Obi-Wan's own.

The dying man didn't scream. He writhed against the ground, blood smearing from behind his head, his body seizing with pain, his mouth open; silent but for the ragged, almost whimpering pants of his breath.

“Don't look at him,” Anakin ordered.

Padmé squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn her head, terrified he would kill her children. She had to keep them alive long enough to get them away from him, away from her _husband._

The signs had been there. Why hadn't she _listened_ to them?

 _I knew better, I_ knew _better—_

She'd hoped he could change. She'd hoped his love for her was strong enough to keep his violent tendencies from turning to her.

But he'd slaughtered kids, before she'd married him. He'd looked her in the eye, said what he did, and though he'd wept for his mother, he had never once regretted what he'd done.

The possessive attempts to control her career and her acquaintances.

The night he nearly beat Rush Clovis to death with his metal fist, because he _thought_ Clovis _might_ kiss Padmé, a woman _Clovis_ thought was single.

The way Anakin spoke when he admitted he craved power.

Arms lifted her up from the ground, and she felt a pain in her abdomen.

_Please, please don't die—_

A rasping cough of an exhale below nearly had her opening her eyes, but she didn't _dare._

She was afraid of Anakin.

She had been for a while.

Ever since Clovis.

_I should never have let him come back. He looked so remorseful, brought flowers, spoke so earnestly, I believed him when he said he would never do something like that again._

There were moments when he'd kissed her, and all of what he'd done had faded away, and all that remained was how much she _loved_ him—

_But Obi-Wan loved him too._

Anakin's footsteps clanked against the landing ramp of her ship.

“A-nakin?” Obi-Wan groaned.

Tears slipped from Padmé's tightly closed eyelids. If she admitted to her grief, Anakin might attack her again.

She didn't know how much more the little one she carried could take.

“You won't take her from me,” Anakin announced, voice cold. “I _will_ save her.”

And oh, why did it sound like a prison sentence?

 _He will never let me go,_ Padmé realized in horror.

She'd had one, very brief window of opportunity to divorce him and get _out._

But now...

The people who would have protected her, would have stood between Anakin and herself were _dead,_ or dying now on the ground.

“Shhh, Angel, it's alright,” Anakin soothed, carrying her to the medical cubby. “We'll get you to a doctor, okay? The best in the galaxy.”

She would take a hovel and a midwife, if they were simply somewhere Anakin couldn't possibly find.

_Did he really let violence be done to Ahsoka?_

Padmé's heart broke. She loved the young woman, so _much_ , and Rex was a good, _decent_ being _—_

_So were the men who followed Anakin into the Temple._

Padmé didn't know why they'd obeyed. Something was _wrong._

But the genocide was complete.

 _He killed them,_ she thought, in echo of his words three short years prior. _He killed them all. The children too. He slaughtered them like animals._

“So we've had our second big fight,” Anakin spoke, settling her on the medical bed.

She knew she could open her eyes now, but she feared she wouldn't be able to look at him with an expression that wouldn't trigger his rage again.

_That first “fight,” people were there, and when I told you to get out, you did._

This time...

There was no one.


End file.
